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you've been training for a long time for

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this mission about two years now and

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you've passed your final exams and it's

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just about time to go so

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do you feel like it was what you

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expected do you feel like you're ready

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for the trip and ready for the mission

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yeah i think we actually get a great

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sense of the training program and how

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the training flow is going to proceed

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when we start and it's really been

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exciting for me to see in these final

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phases of flight how the crew has come

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together

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ground and

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that the fact that folks are really

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ready for the flight and everything's

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getting integrated and put together

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really well that's been just a pleasure

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to see

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i know that with your background in

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science you're a scientist here on earth

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before you even became an astronaut

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you're really looking forward to getting

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your hands on the science equipment on

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board the space station can you tell us

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a little bit about what you are most

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excited about what experiments you're

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going to be performing and you're

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looking forward to

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yeah i'm incredibly excited about a lot

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of the biology experiments of course

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that we're going to be doing on space

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station so i think some of the most

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interesting pieces of equipment that

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we've got on board for research

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capabilities are some of the ones that

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we're going to be doing for the first

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time on on our mission which is trying

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to sequence dna in low earth orbit it's

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going to be very interesting and

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exciting

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it gives us a great capability for space

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station going forward both for studying

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diseases on the planet as well as our

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future exploration for mars beyond low

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earth orbit

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also there's a phenomenal research suite

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on board to actually study

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cellular material so we're going to be

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bringing up a couple of different kinds

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of cells we're going to be bringing up

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heart cells and looking at how heart

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tissue organizes itself and how that

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behaves without gravity as a presence

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and we're also going to be looking at

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bone cells so what happens to the kinds

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of bone cells that are responsible for

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bone regeneration when they no longer

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have that gravity stimulus

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and for those experiments and just in

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general what what would you say as a

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scientist is the value of the lab on the

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space station a lab in in microgravity

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that's a really good question because uh

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the space station is this enormous

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engineering achievement and we've seen

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the international partner agencies come

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together to build this incredible space

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station but one of the most exciting

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things to me is actually the science

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that we can do that we can utilize the

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space station for and the unique thing

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about the space station is that we are

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in this this low earth orbit environment

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so we don't have gravity we really have

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this presence of microgravity it's very

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very small amounts of gravity we're in

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free fall around the planet and so on

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earth any time you do an experiment you

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always have that gravitational force and

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that's never anything that you can vary

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in your experimental conditions what we

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have on the space station is the ability

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to vary how much gravitational force

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we're putting into the cells or the

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tissues or even sometimes the human body

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is the experiment

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so another thing that's really unique

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about the space station is the

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environment that it's in it's traveling

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at 17 500 miles an hour it's in a

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slightly different place in the magnetic

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field it's in a different place in the

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atmosphere than when we have an

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experimental station on the ground so we

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can see things like

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heavy particle radiation ionizing

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radiation in a slightly different way we

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can take a look at for example the

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search for dark matter in the universe

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with the alpha magnetic spectrometer in

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a slightly different way than we could

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using earth-based laboratories and you

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just mentioned that sometimes the human

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body is experiment and in this case

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that's you so has it been interesting or

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different to to kind of turn the tables

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and be the experiment yourself in some

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cases

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yeah just kind of funny sometimes to be

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the experiment and the experimenter

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so all of the research that we do of

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course is is subject to human studies

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regulation and done through informed

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consent but we do have the opportunity

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in a lot of cases to be the experiment

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so i think that's really fascinating for

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me actually is to see the response of

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the human body physiologically to

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microgravity so we know things like the

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immune system changes there's some

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dysregulation of the immune system when

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you're in microgravity you no longer

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have fluid drawn to your feet the whole

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time so there's changes in where the

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fluid shifts around in your body and

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fluid compartmentalization

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we certainly know that there's

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cardiovascular changes there's changes

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with your heart and the way you pump

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blood in your body we know that there

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are skin changes on board we do know

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that there's changes in the levels of

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dormant viruses that will reactivate as

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well as the microbial ecosystem that

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surrounds us so pretty much any system

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you can think of there's some really

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interesting observation that we can make

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in low earth orbit that we can't study

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on the ground

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okay clearly there's a lot to be excited

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about as a scientist but now shifting

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gears a little bit to as an astronaut

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what are you looking forward to

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the the ride on the rocket the

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possibility of a spacewalk and and just

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looking out the window

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yeah i think the moment that i'm most

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looking forward to uh is that first

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moment when we open the hatch on the

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space station and we get to float in and

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we get to to look out the cupola i think

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your first glimpse of the planet from

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the space station is a pretty incredible

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moment

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i think you know

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really all of the above the ride on the

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rocket's going to be

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amazing probably fairly indescribable

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and the the opportunities that we have

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to actually install some hardware in the

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space station are really interesting on

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our mission so we're hoping to install

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the international docking adapter to the

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front of space station this is going to

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allow us to do commercial crew flights

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to the station

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with our u.s base partners

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as well as the upgrading of space

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station to have lithium-ion battery

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capability this is really going to allow

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our energy storage to go well into

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2020 and beyond to maintain space

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station as this incredible laboratory

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well it sounds like there's a lot going

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on in your mission anything else in

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particular that you tell people to be

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watching out for

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yeah so i'm hoping to share some of

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these experiences through the nasa

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astronauts account

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we'll see if my photography skills are

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up to par with those of scott kelly and

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jeff williams they have set a pretty

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high bar so we'll do our best as

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expedition 48 crew to share a little bit

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of this journey with you both the

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research that we're doing as well as the

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views that we're seeing outside

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we can't wait to see them thanks so much

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have a great